Providing process status update information is well-known and readily appreciated by those of skill in the art. In the area of insurance claims, a party may report an insurance claim to a provider. Typically, the reporting of such a claim begins an insurance claim process. The insurance claim process includes a number of steps that occur before the insurance claim process is completed such as, for example, a damage appraisal for insured property, an adjustment of the damage appraisal to determine, for example, pre-existing conditions that may change the amount the provider will pay to the party, different stages of repair of damaged property, and/or a variety of other insurance claim process steps. During the insurance claim process, the party may want and sometimes may need information on the status of their insurance claim. The providing of such information on the insurance claim process raises a number of issues.
Conventionally, the party will either wait to be contacted by the provider by phone or the party will contact the provider by phone. Because of the many steps that occur before the insurance claim process is completed, a single party may require many calls to be repeatedly updated with information on the status of their insurance claim process. Also, an insurance claim may include several parties that need the information such that the number of calls about a given insurance claim process is multiplied further. These calls must be handled by claims adjusters, which is very time intensive and expensive for the provider. In addition, each call requires the claims adjuster to get several pieces of identifying information such as, for example, a name, a claim number, and/or a verification password, in order to access the claim and ensure that the caller is a party associated with the insurance claim. This creates further inefficiencies and provides an unsatisfactory experience for a party that has already called several times for information updates on their insurance claim process.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved system and method to provide process status update information.